Suffolk Legislature saves 600 county jobs

Only 88 Suffolk County employees will be without a job come this holiday season, down from the 710 that were slated to be laid off under an earlier edition of the county’s 2012 budget.

That was just one of the changes the Suffolk County Legislature put in place Tuesday as it overrode County Executive Steve Levy’s budget vetoes. While more than 600 positions were saved, the county Legislature only funded them through the first six months of 2012, leaving incoming County Executive Steve Bellone to find ways to fund those positions for the rest of the year.

The Legislature voted 15-3 to reinstate the slashed positions and raise the police tax by $12 million – a measure that will allow for the hiring of 80 new officers in 2012. Levy chided the Legislature’s budget for tapping $12 million in tax stabilization funds, which he said drew too heavily from the county’s reserve fund and would lead to a decrease in the county’s bond rating. Some legislators have also conceded that a bond rating decrease may be inevitable.

“This was the toughest budget we have ever been faced with in Suffolk County,” said Presiding Officer William Lindsay, D-Holbrook. “We were forced to make a host of tough choices and no one is happy with the choices we were forced to make.”

Legis. Tom Cilmi, R-Bay Shore, was one of the dissenting views on the override, not because he disagreed with reinstating the 600-plus positions, but because it still laid off 88 employees, which he said was unnecessary.

“The 600 or so employees that were not laid off are only funded for six months,” Cilmi said. “It would have cost us just $3.5 million to fund those 88 positions for the same time period. The theory behind the six month time period is two-fold. One, they could only find enough money to fund those jobs for six months; two, it provides some incentive for the unions to get together with the incoming county executive to come to a collective, cooperative solution to our budgetary challenges. There was no reason why those 88 employees deserved anything less than what the other employees got…sort of a stay of execution if you will…when we will have, according to our Budget Review Office, $50 million in our Tax Stabilization Fund at the end of 2012. We could have spared an additional $3.5 million.”

The consolidation of county departments has also been a source of contention between the Legislature and Levy. The Legislature overrode Levy’s veto reinstating the departments of economic development and workforce housing and environment and energy. Those departments will now be consolidated into the Department of Planning, with their commissioners, Yves Michel and Brian Culhane, left out of the budget.

In addition, the departments of minority affairs, women’s services, youth and veterans services have been combined into a newly formed Department of Human Services.

The Legislature’s budget also raised fees at marinas and the county bus fare from $1.50 to $2 – the first fare hike in 20 years, Lindsay said.

One comment

I guess the County Legislators feel that Suffolk residents pay to keep these 600 “working” (“employed” is probably a better word) even if the people in he private sector are struggling to come up with the funds to pay Government.